In monitoring and control fields, the processing module that has conventionally been assembled by hardware is executed by a digital computer in more and more cases. In this case, the processing module performs an identical processing to that of hardware by being packaged as software and being executed routinely by a digital computer. In a case of a plurality of processing modules to be executed by one computer, the processing is performed by routinely executing an operation of executing those in full sequence.
For example, Patent Document 1 gives a description of the method of determining an execution sequence of logic elements shown in the diagram illustrating software. In Patent Document 1, the shown information extraction unit extracts the logic elements and the relation of connection thereamong from the figures, the logic information group generation unit divides the logic elements into the logic information groups in which the execution orders are uniquely determined, and further the execution sequence decision unit assigns priorities to the logic information groups, whereby the execution sequence of logic elements is determined. When the logic elements are replaced with processing modules and the relation of connection is replaced with the (input/output) dependencies, Patent Document 1 can be used in the determination of the sequence of executing a plurality of processing modules dependent on each other.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 05-88869 (1993)